Light in August: Romans 8: 18-39* - Word & World - Luther Seminary

Word & World 7/3 (1987)Texts in ContextCopyright © 1987 by Word & World, Luther Seminary, St. Paul, MN. All rights reserved.page 316Light in August: Romans 8: 18-39*SHELDON TOSTENGARDLuther Northwestern Theological Seminary, St. Paul, MinnesotaWhat diabolical frame of mind caused the makers of our lectionary to serve up thesemagnificent readings from Romans 8 in August? August is a time when people are at the lake, orpreoccupied with getting the crop in, or paying weekend visits to friends or family, or gettingready for the real church year to begin in September. It doesn’t seem likely that many preacherswill tackle these dense, doctrinal pericopes from Romans in August.Yet, here we have texts where the light of the gospel of Christ shines with preeminentbrightness, a brightness which surpasses the hot summer sun of August. Courage and even a littledaring are required of a pastor to preach a series of four sermons on these pericopes, a challengethat we commend to you. It will bring you and your hearers into close contact with a portion ofScripture which has been and is the very fountainhead of life for evangelical Christians.Before we turn to verses 18-39, we need to take brief notice of the first seventeen versesof the chapter. In the clause, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are inChrist Jesus,” we have a massive turning in the epistle, a massive turning toward the gospel. Inthat very first verse the debate about whether Paul’s main agenda in Romans is justification byfaith or life in Christ is resolved. It is precisely the one who is in Christ who is justified. Life inChrist, as one takes it to heart, means to walk, walk according to the Spirit rather than the flesh.Paul’s argument is by no means “only theological” but has everything to do with the Christianlife. Just as people are uniquely creatures of the mind, so our minds are now shaped by and fixedon the cruciform existence which is Christ.At first glance, these August pericopes may seem the same, without sufficientdistinctiveness for preaching, like a thundering waterfall covered by mist where there seem to beno particular channels of flow. Look again! While these*This essay was written after an extended conversation with Tania Haber, pastor of Advent LutheranChurch, Maple Grove, Minnesota, and Frederick Gaiser, Marc Kolden, and Stanley Olson, faculty members atLuther Northwestern Theological Seminary. S. Olson served as the exegete.page 317pericopes are held together in a mighty theological argument, they each deal with a particularissue, each capable of being fertile ground for the growth of a good sermon. The first speaks ofthe “groaning of the creation,” the second of the “Spirit and our prayers,” the third of our being“called according to his purpose,” and the fourth, with a shout unlike any other in the Bible, ofChristians being “more than conquerors.” There is an agenda for your August preaching which ismore than worthy.

Pentecost 8: The Groaning of the Creation, Romans 8: 18-25.The use of contrast for emphasis is an old scheme and Paul makes bold use of contrast in8:18. Just as he knew that his readers were being put upon for the sake of their faith, and just ashe chose to take their suffering with absolute seriousness, so also Paul contended that theirpresent difficulty only made a darkness against which the brightness of their future glory wouldshine like the sun. And do not suppose that the glory which Paul promised was ephemeral andidealized when compared with the particular suffering at hand. By no means, for the glory tocome is a glory revealed, a glory given, a glory shaped and defined by the death and resurrectionof Jesus.Can the preacher make a simple, hermeneutical identification here, one of those simpleidentifications which sometimes works but more often does not? Certainly it does not ring true tobegin by saying that just as the Roman Christians suffered, so also we suffer. We know thatthings are not at all the same these days. Ease and a bland acceptability very well typify ourchurchly experience. Yet, who would deny that there is plenty of suffering in this “present time”?Suffering has no blessing within itself, and the Christian is never exempt from responsibility toand for it. Nevertheless, for Paul, the arena of the world’s suffering was both a sign of the glorythat will be ours and the very arena where our Lord is working out that glory.When Paul moves his already bold argument from verse 18 to verse 19, he becomesaudacious in the extreme. On the one hand, any naive sentimentalism we might have about theworld is undone. Whatever is meant by the suffering of the creation, whether it is simply lifeunfulfilled or life raging red in tooth and claw, the creation clearly provides no sure home orclear sign of hope for the sinner. On the other hand, the futility of the entire creation, togetherwith the particular suffering of the Roman Christians, is now made a negative sign of God’sglory which is to be revealed. The whole sad, slumping creation is, for the apostle, nothing but asign of the glory to come.That “the whole creation has been groaning in travail until now” (8:22) is, of course,knowledge which is available to all persons. Whether it is the thorns and thistle among the stalksof good grain or the ecological wounds more recently gouged upon the body of the earth, all thisgroaning can be heard by anyone. But what is not known abroad is that the whole creation,however innocent, was subjected to futility for our sakes, in order that its groaning might be asign of the glory to be revealed and so that we might have hope for the redemption of the wholecreation.Just as the groaning of the whole creation is a sign of the glory to be, so also our groaningis like that of a woman laboring to bring forth a child. Herpage 318groaning is altogether genuine, even frightening to those who hear. Yet, for her, it is a groaningencouraged by hope for the child that is already coming into the world. And soon, when the childis fully born, the suffering of the mother will be completely taken up into joy.In his panegyric on hope in 8:24-25, Paul comes close to equating hope with faith, anatural equation in that hope is faith’ s disposition toward the future. Society’s hope for thefuture is by no means guaranteed these days. If the time of my own youth was called an age ofanxiety, this age can truly be called an age of hopelessness. One sees it especially in the strugglesof the young. As creatures of our age, we go by what we see and the prognosis for the future on

the basis of what we see is not good. Thanks be to God that our hope need not rest on what wesee but rather on the action of our savior, which action is made sure and steadfast in our hearing.While our hope is patient, as patient as that of the seafarer who knows that in the morningthe lights of home will appear on the horizon, our hope is by no means resigned. Hope isinfectious, a strange and deep optimism which takes all groaning and travail absolutely seriously,and yet rejoices. Let it be said of us Christians in these times that we are known by our hope.Pentecost 9: The Spirit and Our Prayers, Romans 8:26-27.In these verses the apostle speaks again of weakness and the spirit but this time within anew frame of reference, that of prayer.Certainly the subject of weakness is never so sore for preachers as when the matter ofprayer comes up. To make the subject of prayer the agenda of a pastor’s conference is to ensure alot of uncomfortable twisting and turning in the seats. Is there sufficient discipline in my prayerlife? Do I pray enough for others or mostly for myself? Is there a good measure of praise andthanksgiving in my praying, or am I always asking, asking, asking? We know well enough thatprayer is turned in upon ourselves, marked and faulted by weakness and sin.If Paul knows the dilemma of our praying, he also takes away a hoped-for solution. Ourhope may be that once we have reached a certain level of Christian sophistication, a certainfacility in our faith, prayer will issue from our lips with purity and ease. We imagine that it mightbe as facile as a conversation between good friends. But no, says Paul, for the very weakness towhich he refers in these verses is the weakness of the cruciform character of the Christian life.Even as we are being “conformed” to the image of the crucified Christ, we will not “know howto pray as we ought” (8:26).In what way “ do we not know how to pray as we ought?” What is the precise nature ofthis particular problem of prayer? As Roy Harrisville has rightly pointed out, 1 it has to do withthe conjunction between prayer and the hope which is described in 8:24-25. How shall we prayfor those manifestations of our hope which we have not seen? How shall we give patientarticulation to our dim, and often perverse sense of what it might be like to be an adopted child of1Roy A. Harrisville, Romans (Augsburg Commentary on the New Testament; Minneapolis: Augsburg,1980) 133.page 319the Almighty? How shall we be able to capture with our bodily, lip-shaped words what it will befor our bodies to be redeemed? In these matters, even in faith, we are hopelessly out of our depth,and it is only the Spirit’s own help that gives shape to our hope. How can we pray for that whichwe have not seen and thus be patient in our hope? Alas, we cannot! But there is one who helps usin our weakness, one who teaches us to pray as we ought, one who “intercedes for us with sighstoo deep for words” (8:26).What can we say about the “sighs” of the Spirit that are “too deep for words”? Are theremysteries here far beyond our knowing and our preaching? Perhaps so, but at least some thingscan be said. Certainly the intercession of the Spirit is at the deepest personal level, truly a matterof the heart. It is an intercession even beyond our reasonable selves and the reasonable words bywhich our prayer must finally be made, an intercession beyond our emotional selves by whichour words are shaped and colored. In other words, it is beyond the reason which we cannot often

trust and which cannot comprehend our hope, and it is beyond our feelings which often lie to usand which turn Christian hope in upon the self. There, in the deepest self which is perhaps movedonly by a sigh, the Holy Spirit of Christ is sighing to and for us, speaking to God on our behalf.We may be assured that the Spirit’s speaking in and for us will grasp our hope and be “accordingto the will of God” (8:27).page 320Pentecost 10: Those Called According to His Purpose, Romans 8:28-30.Roy Harrisville calls this little pericope “the hinge of the epistle,” 2 a hinge whichintroduces a new element and culminates the argument, but by no means a hinge which suddenlymakes everything clear. Quite the contrary, for here, just at the hinge, the fulcrum, the argumentof the apostle becomes terribly dense. It is as though Paul peers into the saving mind and heart ofGod and sees there a certain foreknowledge, a certain predestination, a certain working out ofGod’s purpose no matter what. Then, because he has had this look into the heart of God inChrist, Paul plainly asserts that “in everything God works for good with those who love him”(8:28).Certainly the struggling Christians at Rome wondered whether God was absent fromthem in direct relationship to the depth, the darkness of their struggle. Does not every Christiansometimes wonder that same thing? Yet, in spite of translation problems, 8:28 is clear, “ineverything God works for good” and in the soaring close to this chapter, we will find that Paul’s“everything” covers just that—from the airy height where the angels sing to the deepest depthwhich is death.This little pericope is the supreme challenge for a preacher and should you choose toaccept it, you would do well to start with 8:29. Whoever starts with 8:28 runs the risk of turningit into conventional wisdom, a capsule encouragement for life, a theological version of theproverbial saying that “in every cloud there’s a silver lining.” To reduce 8:28 to conventionalwisdom would be to do a terrible injustice to Paul’s magnificent argument and to rob his goodword of its true goodness.“For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of hisSon (8:29).” The God who is at work among us is a God who is in control and who will surelybring about his intended purpose. And make no mistake; while we ought not use the language ofcausality here, as though God is toppling us like so many dominoes for his own amusement,neither shall we say that God is “letting be what will be.” God is known to be active andaggressive in bringing about his saving purpose.The purpose which God is steadfastly bringing about is conforming us to the “image ofhis Son,” that very son who went down to death between two thieves for our sakes. That is thejourney on which the sovereign God is taking us, a cruciform journey for Christ’s sake and inChrist’s image, where the itinerary is by no means only on the heights but rather in the everydaydepths near which we always find ourselves.Here there is no note of evolutionary optimism, as though some increment of good isalways being worked out in spite of appearances. Here there is no shallow comfort that falsehopes and dreams, once dashed on the relentless wheel, can yet be appreciated as having hadsome value and made some contribution. Here there is a sense of civilization’s value andnecessity, but a clear warning that we must not expect too much of any of society’s structures.

Starting with 8:29 and knowing that it is the image of Christ to which we are beingconformed also keeps us from reducing 8:28 to the idea that there is a hidden good in all evil,that “every cloud has a silver lining.” Thank God that2R. Harrisville, Romans, 133.page 321Paul does not make Christ’s gospel contingent on refusing to take life absolutely seriously.Thank God that this gospel is infinitely wider and deeper than the platitudinous “everything willbe all right.” Thank God that Christ’s gospel is not apart from but encompassing of our bitternessand desolation as we stand by the grave of our very dearest. Thank God that Christ is using eventhe worst that sin, death, and the devil have to give us in order to bring about his steadfast savingpurpose.“And those whom he predestined he also called” (8:30). The work of the sovereign Godin Christ is our call, news of what God has set out to accomplish for us. Thus, the news ofpredestination is precisely the most precious, saving word that in “everything God works forgood to those who love him.” That is the description of God’s foreknowledge, the blueprint forChrist’s predestination, the most blessed news for the repentant heart. What you now experience,be it height or depth, will not annul what God intends.Finally, does this mean that our own actions are of no consequence? On the one hand, itis true that what we do is of no consequence at all, none whatever alongside God’s grand scheme.On the other hand, our actions are of every consequence for we are being “conformed to theimage of his Son,” to the image of the Jesus of the cross, and there, whether in the depths or onthe heights, our hope will shine like a beacon.Pentecost 11: More Than Conquerors, Romans 8:35-39.With these verses we have the lyric culmination of Paul’s argument for faith. Thepericope, as it is here marked out, begins and ends with the idea of separation, the idea that noone or anything will be able to separate the believer from the love of God in Christ. Faithfulpraise becomes doxology as Paul’s believing confidence is juxtaposed with his taking absolutelyseriously all the potential separation that occurs in life, even the frightening division of death.It is a shame that verses 31-34 have been left out of the pericope. Marking pericopes outis never easy, at best the result of necessity, but this omission seems particularly unfortunate. Thetheological rationale for the whole section is established in these verses. God, who “did not sparehis own Son” (8:32) is for us. Therefore, “who shall bring any charge against God’s elect?”(8:33). Clearly the victory offered to faith is not a charade, not “religious” or “spirituall” not anescape, but a sure and certain hope in Christ in the face of both finitude and death.In 8:35 we see that it is the love of Christ that is to be tested, tested by all those realitiesin life that threaten to separate the believer from it. Paul’s first deadly list of separating calamitiesis taken right from a Roman Christian’s worry list: “Tribulation, or distress, or persecution, orfamine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword.” Paul is testing the love of God for us far beyond theconventional annoyances of bourgeois existence, far beyond everyday frustrations or some lackof personal fulfillment. “The wolf may be at the door,” your vocational hopes may be shatteredby a crisp note, or a beloved child may lie feverish in an antiseptic room; let come what may,says the great apostle, for nothing of a tragic nature can separate you from the love of Christ.

page 322Why would one even read these texts and listen so closely to them if one were not alreadyconvinced that these great separating forces will, by and by, come also to us. Paul reminds usagain of a curious, wonderful, and at the same time frightening Christian freedom, namely, thatwe don’t have to go around finding crosses. They will come along of their own accord, andplenty soon enough.Paul heightens the tension beyond what may seem to be theologically bearable by quotingfrom Psalm 44: “For thy sake we are being killed all the day long.” The very forces of life whichthreaten to separate us from God are in God’s hands, a part of God’s saving purpose. This versedemands our utmost theological attention. The language is not causal, as we often think it to be,nor does it simply refer to the point of view of the believer, as though everything depended onour seeing some “hidden blessing” in our suffering. Even in tribulation, especially in famine,particularly when a child lies feverish in an antiseptic room, we are being molded into thecruciform existence of Christ and are closer to him than ever. Just when the separating forces aregreatest is our bond with the savior deepest.Verse 37: Only now, when Paul has listed all the great tragedies of tearful existence, noneof which can separate us from God’s love, does he speak of our being conquerors. Only now canwe let that victorious word roll over our believing lips, knowing that all the earthly conquestswhich threaten to separate us from Christ are taken down into the cross and resurrection andthere transformed. We are conquerors, make no mistake, but only because our champion hasbound us to himself and now bears us along on a triumphant, final journey.So let us rejoice in our hope, dear Christian friends, let us rejoice with abandon, for justas the depth of death cannot separate us from Christ, neither can the lively, angelic height of ourjoy.